Mind Games
by Paradocs
Summary: The sequel to Soul Crush. More 'fun' awaits Saku, Sesaat, Ryou, and Bakura as two friends arrive, a birthday occurs, and a knife is gifted. And, yes, there are 'shippings in this one. Rated T for semi-mature content, swearing, and the like.
1. Prologue

**Paradocs: **Huzzah. I'm back. Somehow.  
Anyways, here's a sequel for y'all. But first, a prologue-y thing.  
Yep.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bakura or Ryou or any of the Yugioh characters. Nope. Just Saku and Sesaat.**

* * *

**Mind Games**

**Cast**

**_Names printed in parantheses are what the character goes by predominantly._**

**Sakurea Toh (Saku)- **A 16-year old girl from America with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. Formerly played host to Sesaat.

**Sesaat Toh- **Previously known as **Rei**. Originally the spirit of an Egyptian girl sealed in an earring. Now a teenage girl who looks strikingly similar to Saku, albeit with darker hair, brown eyes, and no glasses.

**Ryou Bakura- **A 16-year old boy from England with long white hair, pale skin, and brown eyes. Formerly played host to Bakura.

**"Ryuu" Bakura (Bakura)- **Originally the spirit of an Egyptian tomb robber sealed in the Millenium Ring. Now a teenage boy who looks very much like Ryou, with sharper features and more red-than-brown eyes.

**Malik Ishtar- **A 16-year old boy from Egypt with very tan skin, lilac eyes, and golden hair. Back is ritualistically 'tattooed'.

**Marik Ishtar- **Originally a second, seperate personality in Malik's mind, now a teenage boy with more spiked hair and sharper, darker features than Malik.

**The Story Thus Far...**

Saku, a new transfer student to Domino High from America, arrives in her classroom to find herself in an unlikely predicament: two of her classmates are living with 'dark spirits', and one, Ryou, seems to be intent on being friends with Saku. After a disastrous run-in with Ryou's yami, the violent Bakura, Saku returns to her apartment to be faced with her own yami, a bubbly, if enigmatic, girl known only as Rei. Rei insists that Saku talk to Ryou about her problems and about Rei, and Saku, reluctant, agrees. The following day, a worried Ryou shows up at Saku's door, apologising profusely for the previous day's incidents. Saku forgives him and, tentatively, proceeds to tell Ryou about herself and Rei. After listening, Ryou leaves. The next day in school, Ryou apologises for leaving, but Saku tells him that she understands, and that Bakura was probably making quite a fuss about it, anyway. Ryou denies this, saying that he was 'quiet as a mouse the entire time'. Saku becomes suspicious, recalling that Rei had been quiet as well. After class, the teacher announces that the next period is Gym. After getting permission from the teacher, Saku and Ryou 'cut' class, using the opportunity to purchase a uniform for Saku. The two then spend the afternoon deciding how to get rid of Rei and Bakura, and enjoying scones in a bakery. Saku returns home that evening to find herself facing a very annoyed Rei, who demands to know where Saku has been, and then claims that she'd been at home all day, rather than with Saku. Suspicious, Saku goes to bed. Two days later, Saku approaches Ryou, saying that Saturday's got to be the day for getting rid of Rei and Bakura. Together, they realize that the two yamis are working together. Meanwhile, in the Shadow Realm, Bakura is busy inflicting damage on Rei and, simultaneously, Saku. In the real world, Saku feels a sharp pain in her chest and collapses, unconcious, on the ground, and a panicking Ryou carries her home. Saku wakes up in an entirely new place, and finds it to be her mind, with two rooms: one for her soul, and one for Rei's. Rei approaches Saku, and proceeds to tell Saku her own story, revealing her name to actually be Sesaat. Waking up, Saku sees Ryou watching her intently and asks for him to bring her a spellbook from her room. Ryou complies, and, with Sesaat/Rei's help, Saku reads a spell that seperates her from Rei/Sesaat and Ryou from Bakura. Afterwards, though, the two are a little surprised to find that the spell actually gave them their own, seperate bodies!


	2. Chapter 1

**Paradocs: **Well, huzzah. Yes, the whole meaning behind that prologue was to one, help you older readers, two, let me collect my thoughts, and three, buy me some time.  
Hope I didn't break any rules.

Oh, hey. For those of you wondering, Saku's full name (Sakurea) was created by taking the Japanese characters for my name (Arekusa) and reversing them. Yeah, not very imaginative or anything... -.-

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**Disclaimer: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakura, Ryou, or anything in this story. Except for Sesaat and Saku. They're my O.C.s. Stealing them will mean a most painful death for you, the thief.

"And, well, afterwards, he didn't really bother me for a bit. Nearly three days, I think. It was a record for him back then." Ryou smiled wistfully at that thought.

The sound of rapid clicking followed his words and, as they stopped, a golden-haired girl, glasses perched precariously on the end of her nose, poked her head up from behind the laptop's screen.

"Anything else?" Sakurea (or Saku, as she preferred to be called) asked, shoving her glasses back up her nose. Ryou shook his head, fluffy white hair bouncing with the movement. Saku let out a thankful sigh, twining her fingers together and stretching her arms above her head.

"Thank gods," she breathed, tugging at the loosely-tied blue ribbon that hung limply from the front of her pink school blazer. Shutting the computer, Saku stood up from the sofa. Ryou began to stand too, but the girl waved for him to remain seated as she headed towards her room at the rear of the apartment. "Need to change outtat this bloody school uniform," she explained to her friend. "Here, say something so I don't think you've left or anything, Ryou," Saku added, looking back at him before disappearing through her door.

The boy stifled a laugh at those words. Though he and Saku hadn't known each other very long (roughly a month-and-a-half now), both were fairly certain that the other wouldn't ditch them. They'd been through enough to cement their friendship fairly well thus far, after all.

"Well," Ryou started, glancing at the clock hanging in the kitchen. "Bakura and Sesaat ought to be back from the store any minute now. It shouldn't take them more than an hour to pick up a few groceries, should it?"

Saku poked her head out of her doorway, pulling a plain grey t-shirt over her head. "Ah, but we're talking about Bakura and Sesaat here," she said with a wry smile. "They're probably busy killing each other in the produce section."

Ryou half-laughed, recognizing just how much truth lay in her otherwise-casual comment. "With or without the produce, do you think?" He asked absently. Saku shrugged, stepping out of her room with a pair of jeans on, rather than the knee-length, pleated blue skirt she'd worn to school.

"Well..." She rubbed her chin in thought. "Bakura's probably got a couple of knives in his coat pocket-- unless you took 'em earlier, which you never do-- but I searched Sesaat first thing this morning. She's got nothing on her and anyway," Saku shrugged again. "She prefers pineapples, for some reason. Maybe the leaves?"

They laughed nervously. Both remembered, quite clearly, last week, when Bakura and Sesaat had returned to the apartment covered in bruises and scratches and glaring daggers at each other. The two hikaris had thanked the police officer, then had hauled the pair in for a lesson in proper grocery store protocol. Though they'd seemed more receptive than usual, neither Saku nor Ryou believed they'd been listening, much less had taken the lesson to heart.

"Oi!" A loud voice called, interrupting their thoughts as the front door swung open. A glowering Bakura, a heavy plastic bag slung carelessly over one shoulder, stood on the balcony, looking skeptic as a grinning Sesaat stumbled into the apartment. Setting her pair of grocery bags on the floor, the cheery brunette winked at Ryou, reached out, and grabbed Saku's hand.

"Two hundred fifty-three yen, Saku-chan, 'less you don't want some change from me," the girl grinned, depositing the coins and bills in her hand before refocusing her attention on the pale boy. "'Lo, Ryou-chan. Been a good li'l boy with my Saku, right?" She winked.

Ryou's chocolate-brown eyes widened, as did Saku's hazel ones. The boy opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Bakura, now leaning against a wall with his bag next to his feet, smirked lopsidedly.

"Aww, don't worry, Ryou," Sesaat giggled, ruffling Ryou's hair. "We all know you an' Saku never do anything around here. I swear, you two're as boring as it gets. Wish you'd do _something_ with other other'n talk." Still beaming, Sesaat shrugged and carefully kissed the fair-skinned boy on the forehead. Instantly, Ryou and Saku's face turned a bright, vivid red, as though they'd both been suddenly sunburned. Sesaat giggled and winked broadly at the pair; loud harsh laughter from near the doorway gave testimony to Bakura's own amusement with the scene.

Saku was the first to recover. Face still a cherry-rivaling red, she stammered, "W-what the hell are you doing, Sesaat?"

The yami grinned further still. "Oh, just this'n'that, hikari-chan. What else do you expect from me?" Before any answer could be given, Sesaat leaned over to place the same kiss on the girl's forehead, prompting further blushing and laughter.

Saku blinked, indignant. "A little less of the flirting, you bloody--" The rest of her sentence became incomprehensible to Ryou as Saku began cursing in what seemed to be fairly fluent Egyptian. Sesaat rolled her eyes, placing one hand over Saku's mouth and the other on her arm.

"You really shouldn't be using that language," Sesaat lectured, suddenly stern. "I didn't teach you that so you could sound like a damned street urchin."

Saku's eyes narrowed to slits behind her glasses as the pace of her now-muffled words increased. Sesaat answered back in the same language as they moved the fight into the kitchen, leaving Ryou and Bakura alone in the living room.

"So." Bakura didn't bother to face Ryou as he spoke, merely glancing at him out of the corner of one crimson-brown eye. "Have a good time?" The words were spoken coolly, without his usual harsh tone, but Ryou still felt afraid to answer, lest he give a wrong answer to his roommate.

But, he reasoned, the punishment for a wrong answer would be better than for no answer at all. It had to be, logically speaking.

_As if he _ever _uses logic. _A voice in his head warned him. Ryou ignored it.

"Yes," he replied after a moment, tugging at one strand of snow-white hair that had left its place behind his ears. Bakura said nothing, raising a thin eyebrow as a silent request for a more detailed answer. The noise of the argument picked up, with both Sesaat and Saku now yelling in Egyptian. Ryou saw the sound as an escape from the question.

"What're they saying?" he asked, leaning against the wall in a vain attempt to feel, or at least look, more comfortable. Bakura shrugged, indifferent.

"Not much; the usual, with some expletives added. Your little friend's pissed at Sesaat for being such a..." He smirked now, amused by something. "I _think _she said 'flirting whore-child'. And Sesaat thinks she's an ingrate. The usual." He chuckled darkly, pushing himself off the wall and turning to face his hikari. "Funny little thing you've picked out there, Ryou. Maybe I'll let you keep her in one piece, just for moments like this." Now the expression in his eyes hardened as he placed his hands on the wall, one on either side of the smaller boy's head. The smirk was replaced by what, on anyone else's face, might have been a warm, even friendly, smile. On Bakura's hard-angled, icy face, it looked mork like he was eyeing Ryou as a potentially tasty snack.

"Now," he purred, sending shivers down Ryou's spine as the familiar fear crept in. "Back to my question: what did you and your girlfriend do today?"

Ryou swallowed hard, and smiled the faintly sad, wistful smile that had become his trademark long before now. Then, it had been used to make others feel better, to let them know that he was fine; now it was to comfort himself. "Not much," he said after a moment of thought. The noise in the kitchen had died down to a faint murmur by now, with apologetic mutterings from Saku puncutating it every so often. "We talked, ate some food, studied a bit... the usual," he added, seeing Bakura's unchanging expression. Ryou shrugged, as if to cement the fact that the afternoon had been nothing out of the ordinary. Bakura snorted in disbelief, but removed his hands from the wall, running one through his wild white hair.

"Can't believe my hikari's such a damned coward," he growled, turning away from Ryou. The second boy sighed in relief, glancing at the clock absently. Inwardly, he cursed, pushing himself off the wall and towards his coat and backpack just as a cheery Sesaat and a resigned-looking Saku reentered the room.

"Saku?" Ryou asked over his shoulder, picking up his bag. "What time did I tell you we needed to go?"

Saku glanced at the clock and swore under her breath almost immediatly. "Five o'clock," she answered, grabbing a black wind breaker from a small heap around her own school bag and shrugging it on. "C'mon then," she grumbled, pulling Sesaat by the wrist out the front door with her. Ryou and Bakura followed, the latter smirking at Sesaat's obvious surprise and carrying his shopping bag over his shoulder.

"Where're we going, anyway?" Sesaat asked, allowing herself to be led down the stairway. Saku ignored the question, leaving it for Ryou to answer.

"The airport," the boy glanced up at Bakura, who nodded curtly with a grunt, as if to confirm. "Bakura and I have a couple of friends coming into town for a bit, and I--"

"Hold up." Sesaat stopped abrubtly to give both boys a look of disbelief, forcing Saku to stop as well. "You're telling me that Bakura-chan--_ our_ _'Kura-chan--_ has _friends_?" The thin girl giggled into one hand, as if the possibility was beyond hilarious. "Ryou-chan, have you been drinking too much?"

Bakura smiled thinly, eyes colder than ice now. "I know it's hard to believe, Sesaat," he said, with the faintest trace of humor in his voice. "But it's true: there really are people in this god-forsaken world I don't want to murder on sight."

Sesaat twirled a strand of dark gold hair in her fingers, a playful smile on her lips. "Other'n me, right, 'Kura-chan?" She asked sweetly. The tall boy snorted at his 'pet' name.

"Whoever said you were even _near_ that list?" He answered, not nearly as jovial in his tone as Sesaat had been, but more so than usual. The girl adopted a look of hurt, but said nothing further, simply turning back around and pulling Saku behind her as she continued the group's "trek" towards the Domino City Airport.

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**Paradocs: **Dang... sorry 'bout the delay. I've still got to type up Chapters 2 & 3 for you guys, so hang tight!


	3. Chapter 2

**Paradocs: **If you couldn't tell, this story's been sitting around in my head (and then a notebook) for a while now.  
So here's chapter 2. Believe me, it gets better as it gets going. Just wait until chapter 4...  
Oh, and, hey. Hope everyone likes the new comers to the story! -wink-

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters except for Saku and Sesaat. And this storyline. I own that, too.

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"So, where's your friend?" Saku asked Ryou as the foursome stood in the waiting queue near one of the terminals. Ryou shrugged scanning the crowd.

"Friend_s_," he answered absently. "There're two of them, Saku."

"Two?" Saku echoed, turning away from her own search to face the boy. She gave him a questioning look. The white-haired boy smiled, oblivious to the look.

"Two," he confirmed with a nod. "You know, kinda like you and--" he cut off his explanation as he spotted the friends he'd been looking for. "Malik! Marik!" The boy shouted, waving both hands in the air to catch their attention. That is, until his wrists were grabbed by an irritated Bakura in mid-wave with a small warning growl.

A pair of sandy blonde-haired boys came towards them from the crowd at the terminal one slightly taller than the other, thanks to his upswept, spiked hair. Both were exceptionally tan, and the shorter one, whose hair reached to his shoulders, pulled a rolling bag behind him that, presumably, held their clothes and such.

But, Saku mused, she could be wrong.

In fact, given her luck, she probably was.

"Ryou!" The bag-carrying boy called back, waving at the group until his partner grabbed his wrist with a growl that was eerily similar to Bakura's.

Now that they were closer, Saku noticed more differences about the pair. While both boys were smiling now as they approached, the taller one's smiles seemed more sadistic and cruel than the other's. Involuntarily, Saku shuddered. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Marik," Bakura smirked at the taller of the two. "Still being pushed and pulled around by Malik, eh?"

Marik dropped Malik's hand and reached into his pocket. "And you aren't?" His voice hinted at a personality as dark as Bakura's. "Malik wants to visit your Ryou, he drags me along. Someone's go to watch his damned soft back, right? Wouldn't want it getting all carved up again, now, would we?" Bakura and Marik laughed together, clapsing hands as though they were old friends. Ryou and the other tan boy looked horrified at the comment.

Of the group, Malik was the first to recover from the gristly 'joke'. He smiled congenially at Saku and Sesaat (who looked bemused, but lost, as if she was unsure of whether to laugh, or to frown). "Ryou," he said in a bright voice. "I didn't realize you'd become such a ladies' man since I saw you." Ryou and Saku lit up bright red as Sesaat giggled and the obviously-eavesdropping Bakura and Marik laughed.

"Th-I-They're just friends, Malik," Ryou spluttered, grasping at words despserately. "This is Sakurea," he added, gesturing at the bushing girl beside him. "And that's her--"

"Sister," Saku supplemented, recovered enough to supply the word.

"--giggling over there."

Malik smiled, waving cheerily at Saku. "Nice to meet you, Sakurea," he said. "Saku grimaced at the sound of her full name. The boy stretched out one hand.

"Just Saku," she replied, grabbing the hand and giving it a half-hearted shake. This was getting too strange for her liking. "Ryou likes it more than I do."

Malik's smile twisted into a smirk, as though amused by some hidden joke she couldn't interpret. "That's because Ryou likes names," he said. "I'm Malik, and that's Marik ovr there with Bakura." Letting go of Saku's hand, he looked at Ryou, then at Saku, suddenly looking puzzled. "Are you two--"

"No!" Both replied, with more blushing and emphasis than was probably necessary. Bakura, Marik, and Sesaat stopped laughing long enough to look at the three, amused. Bakura mumbled something unintelligible in Egyptian that made the spike-haired blonde snort, and the dark-haired girl grin, as if she'd been let in on some terrible secret.

"We're friends," Saku added in explanation, crimson-cheeked, in the embarrassed silence between the three. "Just that."

The newcomer shrugged with a lopsided smile. "Just curious." Malik twisted one of his long, gold bangs between his fingers, the color contrasting sharply against the brown of his skin. "But I'd've thought..."

Sesaat turned around, detattaching herself from the laughter to pat Malik's arm with a giggle. The gesture might have been, without the laughter, a gesture of sympathy; instead, it seemed to be more of a gesture of derision. "Malik-chan, you've got a lot to learn if you want to survive around this group. Now," her voice dropped to an almost conspiratory whisper. "If you cold come over, say, Monday, with Ryou-chan, we could give Saku one hell of a birthday and maybe hook 'em u-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Sesaat," Saku said, voice suddenly icy as she gripped Sesaat's arm firmly. "There's no birthday party, we're not celebrating a damned thing, and that's final."

Sesaat rolled her brown eyes, the rest of her face the picture of defeat. "If you say so, little one," she said, adding, with a little chuckle, "But don't bet on it."

"Who wants dinner?" Ryou said quickly, seeing Saku's mouth open to argue. He was eager to divert the conversation to safer ground, before there was a repeat of this afternoon. He nudged Malik, who caught onto the urgency that was in his voice: his hand shot up into the air as his stomach caught on and rumbled loudly. Looking around, Ryou saw Sesaat pull Saku's arm into the air with her own; Bakura and Marik, on the other hand, crossed their arms over their chests in an unmistakable gesture of disregard, as though the prospect of food was as inconsequential to them as a brawl.

Which, Ryou reminded himself, it wasn't quite. They'd rather fight than eat, any day.

"Ryou," Bakura said coolly, "Marik and I are going _home_--" he spoke the words with a sense of irony-- "to chat and do... stuff. You and your little friends go have fun. And, Ryou?" Bakura leaned in until his touched the identical tip of Ryou's. "Relaz, for Ra's sake. 'S damned annoying watching you act like this." He pulled away, flipping his hair back across his shoulders with a soft crinkle of plastic from his bag and motioned for Marik to follow him out of the airport.

An awkward silence hung over the remaining four, ruined by the typical hubbub of an airport. Their eyes followed the duo as they exited the building. Saku and Malik's eyes widened as Marik shouted something back at them in Egyptian that, Ryou assumed, was more explicit than it sounded.

Saku blinked owlishly. "Did they just say they were gonna go--"

Sesaat clapped her hands together loudly, interrupting her hikari. "Well! Let's go get something to eat then, shall we?" She beamed at the still-uncomfortable trio before her, as though she were a teacher expecting a brilliant answer from a group of clever students. After a few moments of silence, Sesaat gave up her attempt and sighed, running her hands through her hair.

"Right then. The usual fare, huh?"


	4. Chapter 3

**Paradocs: **-sigh- Well, here y'are. Chapter 3.  
Hope nobody kills me for mixing names from the original manga and dubbed anime. That'd be bad. Yep.

**Disclaimer: **There's no way in hell Bakura, Ryou, Malik, or Marik are mine, or anyone, really, except Saku and Sesaat.

* * *

"So Ishizu and Rishid sent you up here for school?" Ryou cocked his head to one side quizzically, as though the idea puzzled him. Malik smiled slightly.

"They want me to have a decent education," he said with a shrug, then added, "Plus, they've been too busy lately to keep an eye on me and Marik, with the art exhibits oversea and Rishid's new job--"

"He got a job?" Ryou sounded shocked, incredulous even, at the idea. Saku, turning her head yet again from Malik to Ryou, frowned; Sesaat, several feet ahead of the three, continued walking without a backward glance.

"Yeah." Malik smiled absently at the thought. "I wouldn't eat unless he did something for himself for once, so--"

"Hold it!" Saku stopped walking, crossing her arms over her chest. Ryou and Malik stopped and turned around; Sesaat paused to listen. "You had to make your da--"

"_Brother_," Malik corrected. Saku rolled her eyes.

"Your _brother_ go get a job? Why the hell would you have to do that?"

Malik started to speak, then hesitated. He turned to Ryou with a questioning look. The white-haired boy nodded.

"She's safe. She helped me out with Bakura, and Sesaat's her own piece of hell," the teen motioned towards Sesaat who, as if to oblige some silent command, curtsied elaborately, a mocking look glinting in her brown eyes. Saku raised one eyebrow, but remained silent, waiting for an explanation. Malik sighed and rubbed the back of his neck ruefully.

"Well..." Malik hesitated again, searching for the right words. After a moment, he continued. "I guess Marik's my own version of Bakura, with some changes." He smiled sadly, glancing at one of his wide gold armbands. Saku's eyes widened, then shut.

"Does _everyone _you know have a yami, Ryou?" She muttered darkly, uncrossing her arms and shoving her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker. She opened her eyes, hazel with a tint of frustration in them now. Or was it worry, Ryou found himself wondering. "C'mon," she said, walking past them briskly. "Let's get something to eat."

Ryou watched her go, walking at his normal pace. He should've told her about Malik and Marik earlier. But would that have helped?

_Would it?_ Saku barely tolerated Bakura, after all; her relationship with Sesaat existed purely out of the yami's refusal to leave Saku alone. Marik was nearly as bad as Bakura, and much worse than Sesaat.

_No,_ he decided. _She wouldn't be any happier if I'd told her everything about them. She wouldn't've come at all, and she'd've--_

"Is she always like that?" Malik asked, walking beside him. Ahead, Sesaat had caught up to Saku and was attempting to grab one of her hands from a pocket. Ryou looked up, surprised out of his thoughts.

"Who, Sesaat?" He smiled as Saku and Sesaat began shouting in rapid Egyptian at each other.

"Nah," Malik pointed at Saku, who was now holding Sesaat by the wrist. "Saku. Doe she usually act like this?"

Ryou sighed. "She doesn't like yamis. She's been in the hospital a couple times because of them. She still freezes up sometimes when it's just her and Bakura in a room together."

Malik frowned. "But not with her own?"

The white-haired teen shook his head, about to answer when he noticed a drastic change in the fight between the girls. Sesaat was holding Saku by the shoulders, and was now speaking to her very softly in Egyptian. Saku was nodding sluggishly, and Ryou saw the sudden droop of her eyelids just as her legs gave out, leaving Sesaat holding the now-asleep body. He ran forward, Malik following him, to where the two stood; or, rather,

"Ryou?" Sesaat called, voice strangely calm. "You wouldn't mind if Saku and I took off, would you?" She adjusted Saku so that she was half-draped across one shoulder, as though she were heavily drunk, and Sesaat was dragging her home.

Which, Ryou reminded himself, it pretty much was. Sleep was to Saku what alcohol was to a drunkard. Or it would be, if alcohol could almost-randomly enter one's bloodstream.

"That's fine," he said aloud. "We should probably be heading back to my place now, anyway. Bakura's got no idea where the groceries go, anyway." He glanced at Malik, who was looking as though he was slightly uncomfortable with the suggestion.

Sesaat smiled brilliantly. "Perfect." She ruffled Saku's hair with one hand. "Well, you two have fun over there, 'kay? Miss Sleepy-head and I'll see ya later, alright?" She gave Malik and Ryou a look that held some other, deeper meaning, then nodded and, still supporting her unconscious roommate, headed towards their apartment, the two boys following them with their eyes until they disappeared around a corner.

Malik was the first to speak. "Do we _have_ to go back to your house?" He said, almost whining. Ryou raised a thin eyebrow in question, causing the Egyptian teen to add, "We haven't eaten anything yet, and we told Bakura and Marik we were going to get something to eat."

Ryou shrugged. "Bakura knows that Saku falls asleep a lot. She's got acute narcolepsy or something. He'll understand, plus..." he smiled. "I'll make you a veggie burger at home. I made Bakura pick some up the other day, just for you."

Malik smiled back, though his was considerably more nervous, as though even the prospect of food wasn't quite enough to get him to go back to his friend's apartment. "If you say so," he conceded, following Ryou in the vague direction of his home. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

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**Paradocs:** No, I didn't forget about this; I just had a hard time hashing this chapter out, and I lost my original hardcopy of it. Thank you, mister washing machine. -glare-  
Luckily, the next chapter is going to be really easy to write. I've still got THAT, and, if I get five or more reviews, it'll be up in the next three days!


	5. Chapter 4

**Paradocs: **Fourth chapter, folks, and, as per usual, we're nowhere near the actual plot points...  
I think.  
Anyway, sorry for the delay! I was a bit busy with life and then I went and got distracted enough to write some half-arsed one-shots. -o- Gomen!  
Also! This chapter gets a special second-part-extension-thing in the form of a one-shot! Details later!

Oh, and, for the first part of this chapter: XD times fifteen. Best thing I've ever tried to write, considering that I'm a girl and I've never heard that before.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bakura or Ryou or any of the Yugioh characters. Nope. Just Saku and Sesaat.**

* * *

"So, how long have you had a crush on Saku?" Malik asked casually as he and Ryou walked through the now-darkening streets of Domino. Ryou shot him a stunned look, which Malik returned with nothing more than a raised eyebrow at first.

"Come on, Ryou," he continued. "It's kinda obvious that you like her." The teen smirked, looking at the white-haired boy beside him out of the corner of his lilac eyes.

Ryou sighed and looked down at the ground, hands jammed in his pockets. "A-a while," he admitted after a moment of embarassed silence from him. He expected Malik to laugh, or say something mean or mocking; after all, this _had _to be some sort of payback for making Malik come home, rather than stay out later.

Imagine his surprise when the Egyptian clapped him hard on the back.

"That's great!" Malik said with a smile. "She's a pretty girl, I'll grant you that. On the other hand..." He paused, looking thoughtful, then continued. "She's not much in the, err--" He motioned with his hands over his chest. Ryou's confusion increased as Malik's attempts at pantomime fell on apparently-deaf ears.

"'In the' what, Malik?" Ryou asked finally. The tan boy sighed in exasperation before answering, dropping the mime.

"The chest. She's got no bust, Ryou." The young Egyptian said flatly, a faint blush tinging his cheeks. "She's flat-chested."

Ryou had a sudden urge to slap his friend across the face. The _chest? _He was talking about Saku's _breasts? _Voice shaking with the effort to control himself, Ryou found himself saying, "I hadn't noticed, Malik. I don't usually spend my whole time sizing up a girl's _chest_. I guess I don't have to worry about that, either, with _you _around." He glared at Malik with his dark mocha eyes, the effect otherwise ruined by his soft face and fluffy hair. Malik rolled his eyes at the look.

"Ryou, you and I _both _know I couldn't care less if your girlfriend is flat-ches--"

"She is not flat-chested!" Ryou shot out loudly, causing the few pedestrians walking past them to give the pair some questionable looks. "She just probably just wears... um..." He blushed, unable to finish his statement, to Malik's amusement.

Though, of course, the Egyptian boy wouldn't show that. Not right now, at least. That'd be more cruel than was necessary for paying Ryou back for dragging them both back to his apartment early.

"Hey, look." Malik put his hand on the other's shoulder. "I didn't know you were so sensitive about that. You're probably right. Just forget it, okay?" He smiled, and was relieved to see Ryou nod in agreement.

That sense of relief quickly disappeared as he recognised the building looming in front of them.

_Shit._

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Outside the door of Ryou and Bakura's shared apartment (though it was really Ryou's, if you thought about it), Malik and Ryou stood, both at varying levels of comfort as they stood there. Malik had his arms crossed over his sleeveless hoodie, the light brown standing out against the lavender of the shirt. Ryou had his pockets in his blue school pants, having not had any time to change outfits before leaving for the airport.

Both were listening, with varying levels of horror, curiousity, and awkwardness, to the sounds coming from within the apartment. There was the shattering of glass, screaming, cracking noises, and, predicatably, angry yelling.

The fact that it was in Egyptian, and thus incomprehensible to Ryou, was a bit of a surprise to the white-haired boy. Malik didn't seem so phased by that, but he still looked remarkably uncomfortable.

After a few minutes of listening to the cacophony from inside, Malik finally spoke.

"You can open the door, can't you?"

Ryou pulled his hands out of his pockets, showing them to be empty. "I put the keys in Bakura's pockets this morning; I thought he'd be home before me, and I'm always losing my keys, anyway." He paused for a moment. "We could knock."

Malik rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, that's a _great _idea, Ryou," he said sarcastically. "Let's just knock on the door and ask a couple of yamis- who we _both _know are psychotic little bastards normally- to pretty please let us in when it's obvious they're having a fight. Yeah, just _brilliant._"

"You have a better idea?"

"Nope."

"You want to, or should I?"

"Hey," Malik raised his hands in protest. "Your idea, you get to try it out. Besides, someone needs to be able to run for help, and you tend to fall a lot when you run." Ryou shot Malik an ineffective glare, but knocked, timidly, on the door anyway.

The yelling inside stopped for a moment, punctuated by one last shattering of glass. Silently, Ryou prayed that he'd still have his drink glasses intact tomorrow. There was a sound of footsteps, slightly staggered, coming towards the door, the click of the door being unlocked, and, as it swung open, the two teens found themselves face-to-face with Bakura. The yami's white button-up shirt was untucked from his pants and open to reveal his chest and the Millenium Ring hanging around his neck. He held onto the door with his left hand; the right held a mostly-empty bottle of what Ryou assumed was alcohol.

Bakura growled something incomprehensible at them in Egyptian; Ryou could smell the booze on his breath. The boy made a mental note to never leave Bakura alone in the store again, with or without money.

A voice called from inside the living room, though beyond the opening that Bakura was currently blocking. It was slurred, and spoken in Egyptian, but Ryou and Malik shot each other a look of horror as they recognised its owner.

"Shit!" Malik swore under his breath. "Marik knows he's not allowed to have any alcohol!"

Bakura turned his head to yell into the room, and Marik shouted back from where he was. Ryou looked at Malik, whose face was steadily turning more red than pink with each exchange between the two drunken men. Finally, Bakura looked back at the pair and, with a laugh, slammed the door in their faces. Ryou heard the door's lock click, followed by a grating sound as the deadbolt was pushed into place. And, almost immediately, the noise from earlier resumed, albeit with more yelling from Bakura and laughter from Marik.

"Well..." Malik and Ryou looked at each other, feeling more uncomfortable than ever.

"You think Saku would mind if we crashed with her and Sesaat?"


	6. Chapter 5

**Paradocs: **Well, I guess Chapter 4 was pretty well recieved, eh? That makes me feel better. The fact that nobody really read the one-shot that went with it (**Kono Aida Ni**) didn't. IT WAS FUNNY. -pouts-  
Anyway, I'm going to let y'all know: go read **Birth of a King! **It's one of my (better) pieces, after all...

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters except for Saku and Sesaat. And this storyline. I own that, too.

* * *

"You sure we should do this?"

"Look, just press the button."

"But, Ryou, they're--"

"Malik!" The white haired boy gritted his teeth in exasperation. "Just. Press. The damn button. _Please._"

The tan Egyptian sighed resignedly, pressing one mocha finger to the panel on the wall.

_Ding-dong!_

Almost instantly, the white door the two teens had been standing in front of opened. Sesaat, clad only in a oversized T-shirt (the characters across her chest spelled out "baka" in katakana) and ridiculously short shorts, rubbed her eyes with one hand, in an expression that, had the scene been in a cartoon, would have been too cute for most. Her brown eyes focused on the boys, and, almost instantly, her cute-and-sleepy look was replaced by an enormous grin.

"Sleep over!" She said with evident pleasure. If she'd said it with any more glee, it would've been a squeal. She pulled Malik and Ryou inside, closing the door behind them before they could protest.

For a moment, Ryou wondered if she'd been expecting them the whole time.

His eyes roamed around the living room, so different now from the light-flooded place it was in the afternoon, before coming to rest on the small, blanket-covered lump that lay on the couch. He heard a quiet _clunk_ as Malik dropped his bag on the floor, and slid his shoes off his feet without a second thought, stepping into the apartment.

"Tired li'l thing," Sesaat said from behind Ryou. The boy whirled around, startled out of his thoughts. The Egyptian spirit-girl smiled gently, almost gliding over the floor until she was sitting on the couch near her roommate's feet. "You gave her a hell of a shock, boys. 'Specially you, Ryou-chan." The look she gave him now was slightly amused.

Very, very, _very _slightly. Ryou made a mental note to never get on Sesaat's bad side in the future.

"I didn't _mean _to," he mumbled, feeling his cheeks flush red. "I thought it was--"

"Obvious? Not really," Sesaat interrupted, grabbing a stick of Pocky out of an open box on the table and sticking it in her mouth. "Look, kid. Saku-chan looks like a clever little thing out there, but she's no genius. You wanna make sure she knows something, you _tell her._ Girls like honesty, Ryou-chan."

Malik sat down on one of the hard folding chairs that comprised the remainder of the sitting furniture in the room. Actually, he attempted to flop into it, but the effect was ruined by the fact that one, there were no arms on the chair, and two, there were a couple thick, dictionary-like books on it already. "Nice place," he said with a twist of irony, shoving the books onto the floor so he could sit properly. "_Love _the decorating job." Sesaat treated the Egyptian to the same look she'd just given Ryou, until he interrupted.

"He's just upset. Marik and Bakura are..." He stopped, unsure of how to complete his sentence.

"Stoned as hell and fucking around?" Sesaat supplemented, biting off a section of her chocolatey treat. When Ryou looked at her, shocked, she shrugged. "Bakura got some drinks at the store, and Marik shouted it out when they were leaving. Ra, I know _you _don't speak a word of Egyptian, Ryou-chan, but, Malik-chan! Didn't _you _hear what your yami was sayin--"

"Of course I knew what he was saying!" Malik burst out angrily. "Y'think that maybe I was hoping he was making a _joke_?! I swear, when I get my hands on Marik..." His voice trailed off as Malik began muttering in furious Egyptian, such that Sesaat covered Saku's sleeping ears; the girl didn't look remotely shocked, though.

"Lemme guess: he's got a thing for that guy?" Sesaat said, looking at Ryou, who gave the tiniest of shrugs, as though afraid the volatile Egyptian would see. The girl smiled, pulling the already-massacred stick of Pocky out of her mouth and stretching her arms above her head in an exaggerated motion that showed more skin than Ryou had thought possible. "You two c'n have Saku-chan's room." She finally said flatly, pointing towards the dark-shrouded back of the flat. "Just don't screw it up too much; 's gonna be hard enough explaining to her that you guys are staying over."

Ryou nodded, watching the fast-asleep Saku. For a moment, he was tempted to touch her face, brush one strand of her hair away from her closed eyes and tuck it behind an ear. But he didn't. He was too afraid of waking her up, of making Saku even more upset with him than she was already. That wouldn't be right, and what right did he have to touch her? So instead, he'd just watch her, and wonder what she was dreaming of.

Suddenly, Saku's expression changed, from one of peaceful slumber to a look of pure pain and terror. She kicked from beneath the blanket, forcing Sesaat to practically leap off the couch, and Ryou could hear her whine and whimper, though what she said was impossible to tell. Sesaat grabbed the thrashing girl's wrists, holding her down on the couch and appearing oblivious to the kicks that hit her every so often.

"What's wrong?" Ryou said, terrified that something was wrong with her. Sesaat looked behind her at the two boys and grimaced.

"Nightmares. She keeps reliving the same thing over and over again in her dreams." She laughed bitterly as one knee connected with the side of her head. "Sometimes she wakes up before this part, sometimes after, but never in the middle of it." Suddenly, she let go of her arms, just as Saku's erratic movements calmed. "There. That's better. Now you see why she's always so tired, Ryou-chan?" Sesaat gave him a hard look; it wasn't angry, or upset, but the same one a mother might give a child to prove a point. Ryou nodded, sneaking a glance at Malik, who looked as if he was about to go catatonic or something. His eyes were all blank, just staring at Saku's face, looking horrified.

"Malik? Malik?" Ryou snapped his fingers in front of his friend's face, and was rewarded by the sight of Malik shaking his head, as if to get rid of something.

"Sorry," the Egyptian smiled shakily, "I used to have some pretty freaky dreams when I was little." Ryou half-smiled. He understood what Malik meant: after all, he'd had some bad dreams himself for a while when he was younger. Sesaat shrugged, yawning wide, like a cat. She started walking towards the back of the apartment, not bothering to flick a light on to illuminate the shadow-shrouded hallway. She turned to go into her room, opening the door and watching the two boys for a moment.

"Y'know, she's not gonna like it if she wakes up and you two're standing over her like that. An' I'm not going to bed 'till you guys are in her room and sleeping. Gotta make sure y'don't rape her or something, y'know?" She smiled sweetly, evidently enjoying the look of horror on Ryou's face just as much as Malik was (the Egyptian teen had covered his mouth with one hand as his shoulders shook with supressed laughter). He ended up being shoved aside as the white-haired boy practically _sprinted _into Saku's room, slamming the door behind him. The two Egyptians grinned at each other.

"Yeah, he does that a lot," Malik said, knowingly pointing out the obvious, as he followed, albeit at a much slower, more deliberate pace.

Sesaat smirked. "You wanna help hook 'em up?"

"Oh, _hell_ yes."

* * *

**Paradocs: **And, with those last lines, I was promptly massacred by every Malik fangirl out there. Yes, I'm *still* working on figuring out who Malik is, and by that, I mean his personality. He's not that easy to pinpoint, you know!

Anyway, read and review, folks! I like reviews. They taste good.


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